Retro Express | ‘Punarjanam’ As A Recipe For Revenge, Justice And Happily-ever-afters

The stage for reincarnation as one of the popular devices in Indian cinema was first set by Kamal Amrohi’s Mahal (1949), which climaxes in the revelation that the heroine had lured the hero into believing that he is the reincarnation of a lover from a legend so that he falls in love with her.

Reincarnation has been a popular theme in Indian cinema since forever and perhaps it has its roots in Hindu philosophy, which propounds the theory of rebirth of a soul to fulfil its karmic debts. Since its earliest instances to the most recent ones, reincarnation movies predominantly speak of unrequited love between hero and heroine, which is resolved when they are reborn. In Kudrat (1981), the picturisation of the song “Humein tumse pyar kitna” (the male version) hints at the concept of eternal love between a couple.

Established as a prominent motif in Indian cinema through classics like Mahal and Madhumati (1958), reincarnation and past life memory have grabbed a niche in Indian cinema, gaining popularity in Bollywood as well as in the regional film industries. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Bollywood prolifically produced reincarnation films, like Milan (1967), Neel Kamal (1968), Milap (1972), Mehbooba (1976), Karz (1980), Kudrat (1981), Janam Janam (1988; an official remake of Madhumati), Suryavanshi (1992), Prem Shakti (1994), Karan Arjun (1995), Prem (1995) and Hameshaa (1997). Farah Khan’s blockbuster Om Shanti Om (2007) once again kindled people’s interest in past-life-themed movies.

One main motivation of punarjanam movies is to address true love which remained unfulfilled in one birth, with either the hero or the heroine (or both) dying in the previous birth. If true love and its fulfilment are at the heart of most reincarnation films, some also made room for delayed justice, or even better—revenge. Madhumati, one of Bimal Roy’s best-known films, marries romance and revenge. Written by Ritwik Ghatak and borrowing heavily from Hamlet, it was the template for subsequent films in the genre. It begins when Devendra (Dilip Kumar) takes shelter with a friend in a spooky mansion and finds his likeness on the wall. His flashback reveals the love between Anand (also Kumar) for Madhumati (Vyjayanthimala), which was thwarted by the evil Ugranarayan (Pran). In the present birth, Devendra is reunited with his wife (Vyjayanthimala yet again).

Farah Khan’s reincarnation drama Om Shanti Om, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, lifted its entire climax from Madhumati¸ but it could not match the power and innocent beauty of the original.

In Shakti Samanta’s Mehbooba, pop singer Suraj (Rajesh Khanna) meets the ghost of his lover Ratna (Hema Malini), reminding him of the time when he was a court singer and she was the dancer he loved. Their interrupted romance continues in the new birth, when Suraj meets a Ratna lookalike. The mournful title song haunts the soundtrack as well as Suraj’s dreams.

Both aural and visual mnemonics are key to a reincarnation movie. In older productions, it was a mesmerising wall painting or seemingly alive furniture that drew the characters into its secrets. Kamal Amrohi’s Mahal popularised such Gothic elements and a sense of uncanny that befuddles the audience and adds tension to a boring love story.

Both, Subhash Ghai’s Karz and Rakesh Roshan’s Karan Arjun tackled the reincarnation-for-revenge idea fruitfully. In Karz, based on the American film The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), pop star Monty (Rishi Kapoor) has a nervous breakdown while playing a tune on his guitar. A medical test helps Monty relive his past life as Ravi (Raj Kiran), a wealthy man who was tricked into marriage and murdered for his wealth by Kamini (Simi Garewal) and thereby the stage is set for revenge.

Vengeance also motivates the brothers from potboiler Karan Arjun. After a series of nightmares, Vijay (Shah Rukh Khan) realises that he is the reincarnation of Arjun, the son of Durga (Raakhee) and the brother of Karan (Salman Khan). The sons return to Durga’s village to kill the perpetrator Durjan (Amrish Puri).

The tension of the storyline features sometimes only in the past life (Madhumati, Milan) and more often in both lives (Mehbooba, Karz, Kudrat). As popular Indian cinema started becoming more action-packed from the late 1970s and revenge as a cinematic theme started gaining more popularity, retribution of the violence done in past life in the hands of the reborn protagonist became pivotal (Kudrat, Karz, Om Shanti Om, etc).

A key element in the reincarnation narrative is the protagonist’s recollection of his/her past life. Movies copiously employ various devices or markers that trigger this past life memory, alluring him/her to unfold the mystery and romantic interest of their past life and eventually compelling him/her to revisit places where they’re located. These “memory triggers” can be visual, aural and even tactile in nature and come in every possible form.

It can be a picture (Madhumati, Ab Ke Baras), a statue (Neel Kamal), a musical instrument (Mehbooba), a glass globe containing a waltzing couple (Om Shanti Om), bangles (Karan Arjun), a musical piece (Karz) or anything else. Sometimes even multiple triggers are at work—as in Kudrat, where a musical piece, a necklace, a wooden cottage, a clock tower rekindle the heroine’s past life memories like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. To add to this, she is haunted by nightmares which are actually visions from her past life. Gen Z would call it over-stimulation, but in Bollywood, less is never more.

Apart from these, musical tunes or songs rekindling the past memories are an inescapable feature (every music director needs a challenge, right?). So you have “Aayega aane wala” in Mahal, “Aaja re pardesi” in Madhumati, “Yeh bandhan toh” in Karan Arjun. The musical piece has to play on loop to trigger past life memory.

Another pivotal memory trigger is the locale of the story, which almost always contains a ruined mansion (a castle-like building in Madhumati, a palace in Neel Kamal, a bungalow in Kudrat, a burnt film studio in Om Shanti Om).

The locality of the past life (Milan, Karz, Madhumati) and the building plays an important role in revisiting the past life memories. The protagonist’s memories are triggered with a feeling of déjà vu in the place—a feeling which morphs into concrete visions of past life. And most often, the climax of the movie takes place in the same place as the tragic climax of the past life.

In fact, the past life memory motif has lent a unique dimension to the element of fantasy in Indian movies, which also infuses elements from other genres, predominantly from romance, horror, thriller—the more to confuse the audience, the merrier. The theme, which continues to thrive with Eega (2012), Magadheera (2007), Gatha Vaibhava (2025) is often a fail-safe bet to attract the audience, which largely believes in the idea of rebirth. Once in a while though, reincarnation has crashed at the box-office, like the slickly made Raabta (2017), with late Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon.

Sure, true love often happens more than once in a lifetime, and if there is any genre well-suited to the idea of second chances, it is the reincarnation genre. If it also serves to accomplish revenge and justice, well, so be it.